English Language Arts

ELA PHILOSOPHY

Our approach to literacy instruction ensures explicit teaching, protected independent reading and writing time, one-to-one conferring and small group instruction. Whole-group instruction addresses CCSS-ELA standards and builds skills and content knowledge to support the development of all areas of literacy.  Small group and individual instruction occur daily and support students’ development across the curriculum by providing increasingly individualized teaching, practice and feedback in the following areas: oral language, phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, rapid automatic name or letter name fluency,  reading comprehension and writing.
 
The English Language Arts program in Madison offers an individual approach that prepares students to become critical and creative thinkers, lifelong learners, and active contributors to a global society. The program meets the needs of a diverse student population, including students learning English as a second language. Literacy Foundations, taught across the curriculum, in coordination with the English Language Arts program, provide students with the tools to achieve their highest potential.
The district is committed to ongoing professional learning to support a culture of continuous refinement and improvement of practice to meet the changing needs of all students in the system and the demands of global citizenship.  Professional learning is embedded in the school day on a weekly basis in teams, as well as on dedicated days for intensive learning opportunities.  These include collaboration with national and international experts, and the study of lessons, units, and professional books.  In addition, teachers engage in routines for the regular examination of data to monitor the effectiveness and impact of curriculum on student learning. 

DELIVERY METHODS

Our delivery approaches literacy with a structured model that ensures direct instruction aligned to the standards and individualized differentiation. This is done through explicit teaching, protected independent reading and writing time, one-to-one conferring and small group instruction. Teachers create opportunities for inquiry, rich discussion, and student choice to foster engagement and enjoyment. 

STANDARDS

The Madison ELA curriculum is created with the district priorities represented in the mission statement, Profile of a Graduate matrix, and is aligned with the Common Core. These priorities were used to develop K-12 Transfer Goals that are assessed in curricular units throughout a student’s academic career.

ENGLISH / LANGUAGE ARTS GUIDING DOCUMENTS

Unit 1 

Launching a Community of Readers and Writers    Launching a Community of Readers and Writers is a seven week unit that introduces Kindergarteners into our learning community. Teachers will begin this unit by setting up rules, routines, and procedures that will support students throughout the year. Students will be introduced to ten snap/trick words as well as practice PA/Phonics skills to support their early literacy development. An emphasis on name writing and interactive reading will help lay the foundation for independent/partner reading and writing. Students will learn appropriate book handling as well as learn how to independently select books.  This unit supports students in learning that anything can be a topic for writing and introduces them to the Writer's Notebook. Students are provided tools and resources to help them 3 star color and learn to use shapes to further develop their drawings. This unit comes to a close with students talking about and sharing about reading together and supporting each other as writers.

Profile of a Graduate Capacities: Self-Awareness, Decision Making 

Unit 2 

Using Patterns to Read the World    This unit introduces readers and writers to the concept of patterns in text. Students learn to identify patterns in text as readers and learn to create their own pattern books. Students think about the big idea and identify it within class read alouds and independent leveled text. Students will learn to think about a big idea and patterns that will help them to create their own books. Students will continue to build upon their trick word knowledge by identifying known trick words within a text and thinking about how they help create patterns. They will then use these trick words, when creating their own books. Students will learn about tricky/surprise endings as well as seesaw patterns.

Profile of a Graduate Capacities: Analyzing, Product Creation, Self-Awareness 

Unit 3

Reading & Writing about Friends    This unit will focus on friendship, emotions, characters, and story elements. Through the use of read alouds and classroom discussions, students will identify what makes a good friend. Students will learn to identify feelings in themselves, others and the characters they are reading about. As readers, they will develop their ability to form opinions about characters based on their actions and words. Students will create stories about their own experiences and expand their writing across three pages. Foundational skills will be a key focus throughout the reading and writing activities.

Profile of a Graduate Capacities: Analyzing, Self-Awareness

Unit 4 

Informational Reading and Writing    Teachers will capitalize on kindergartener's natural wonder and curiosity with a focus on nonfiction reading and writing. In this unit, readers will learn that every author can be a teacher and that readers are always learning from writers. Readers will be encouraged to ask and answer questions like: "What is this book mostly about? What did it teach me? How is this book the same and different from other books about this topic?" Readers will also learn who, what, where, why, when and how questions as they journey with authors to learn all about topics, places, people, animals and how to do many things. These questions will help readers talk and write about their learning. Kindergarten writers will become teachers in this informational unit. Students will gain writer's confidence by watching and listening to teachers modeling how we observe our world like scientists and add details that include facts, examples and comparisons to help readers visualize and connect. The goal for our kindergarten writers will be to write informational texts that have a main idea and supporting details using words and drawings.

Profile of a Graduate Capacities: Inquiry, Product Creation, Decision Making

Unit 5 

Reading and Writing Poetry    In this unit kindergarten students will become poets. They will read and collect poems about everyday experiences. They will begin to look for patterns in the words of the poems they read, including repeated words, similes, use of the five senses, and rhyming words. They will write poems about experiences from their own lives and collect them in a poetry folder. Students will celebrate their creativity with oral practice of their poems in small groups and with partners as they build early fluency skills.

Profile of a Graduate Capacities: Analyzing, Design, Product Creation

Unit 6 

Extra, Extra, Read All About It! - Reading and Writing With Voice!    In Unit 6, students will use what they have learned about fiction and nonfiction throughout the year. Students will explore the difference between fact and opinion and learn how to back up their opinion with evidence. They will share their opinion about a favorite book in a friendly letter format where they attempt to be as convincing as possible. They will also plan for a "book talk" in front of their classmates to kick off summer reading!

Profile of a Graduate Capacities: Analyzing, Collective Intelligence, Product Creation 

Unit 1 
Engaging Young Readers and Writers    

Readers are Thinkers launches first graders into reading with engagement, motivation, and self-reflection. The teacher will introduce the routines and procedures of readers' workshop, the classroom library and whole group instructional spaces while emphasizing student perseverance and stamina. First graders will reflect on their choices and set goals for themselves as individuals and as a community of readers and writers. The teacher will model active listening, book choice, choosing a just right book and reading stamina to guide mini-lessons and small group instruction. Students will increase their reading stamina and begin setting goals and become more independent. These lessons will serve as instructional guides to help monitor student growth and independence toward the decision making and critical reflection goals of the unit. First graders will find and reflect on their reading spots, book choices, and stamina to set goals as independent reading times increase and teachers have the important opportunity to confer with readers.

In Taking Charge of Our Writing Lives teachers launch the year by modeling how to try out new ideas, strategies and the reward of writing a story to entertain a reader. Teachers model the idea that writers not only share ideas, they think about creating messages that other readers can understand. Teaching points are chosen in interactive writing and provide opportunities for guided instruction separate from process writing while building confidence and strategies for encoding and editing. Teachers will support the students as they problem solve, take risks independently and build writing stamina. Students will create graphic organizers as a way to generate ideas that are really important to them. Time will be taken during the first few days to have students use their organizers to tell oral stories to one another and to then try out drawing and writing their stories over three pages. Students will learn how to access writing supplies and to organize their material. Teachers will conference with students to reinforce modeled strategies during independent practice.

Profile of a Graduate Capacities: Collective Intelligence, Self-Awareness
 

Unit 3 
Reading and Writing Gingerbread Stories    

In this mini-unit, students will begin to explore traditional tales by focusing on variations of Gingerbread stories.  While reading classic versions and newly adapted tales, students will begin to retell stories using the story elements character, setting, problem, and solution.  Students will work with a writing partner to draft their own gingerbread tale.  They will use a checklist to make sure to carefully add all of the story elements.  

Profile of a Graduate Capacities: Analyzing, Alternate Perspectives, Product Creation
 

Unit 4 
Informational Reading and Writing    

Students will be going all over the world with authors - to the forest, ocean, mountains, space and back in time! They will be exposed to a wide variety of content and non-fiction formats as students dive into this genre through the lens of questioning, learning and discovering. Students will read how-to, all about, and narrative non-fiction books and ask questions to figure out how the author's main idea and supporting details provide an organizational structure for readers. Readers will use RAN charts to record their learning and actively engage with an author while they wonder, question, learn and evaluate. This unit is timed as readers are approaching levels E, F and G as they move toward more independence and problem solving in their everyday reading life. Students will read books based on their interests and curiosities, and will be guided to choose just right books that they can read and learn from. A wide variety of content will be a part of shared readings and interactive read alouds in the classroom. Students will be encouraged to check out and bring home library books that they can enjoy with older readers at home to give students access to content that they may not be able to read independently at school.

Students will learn about how-to and all-about writing.   Readers will organize their writing like the authors of the books they are reading and plan a main idea with supporting details. Writers will begin by thinking about the topics that they are already experts in! During this unit there is a focus on the POG work in product creation as students are taught how writers match their topic, audience, message and purpose to the product they decide to create. First graders know so much about their own hobbies, activities, homes, rooms, sports, nature and families that they can begin writing how-to and all about books right away. As writers learn more about reading to learn they may begin to incorporate some of their reading and research into their later products. Writers will use and add non-fiction text features as they learn more about the genre in reading and write under the influence of mentor authors. Students will publish two books throughout this unit.

Profile of a Graduate Capacities: Inquiry, Product Creation
 

Unit 5 
Reading and Writing Tales    

In this unit, students will be immersed in traditional literature, including folktales and fairy tales.  They will use what they learned in the prior informational unit to build background on different cultures from around the words before reading tales. They will recount the stories read using "retelling hands" to remember story elements such as characters, setting, problem, events, and solution. They will identify when a character has learned a lesson and how they can apply that lesson into their own lives.  Students will explore alternate perspectives as they look at characters in nontraditional roles. In writing, the students will start by adapting the familiar tale of The Three Little Pigs. They will work with writing partners as they plan out their story from beginning to end and bring their work to publishing through the writing process.

Profile of a Graduate Capacities: Analyzing, Product Creation
 

Unit 6 
Reading and Writing with Voice!    

In this unit, students have an opportunity to find their voice when reading and when writing.  In the reader's workshop, students put themselves in a character's shoes by analyzing their thoughts and actions.  They practice reading fluently while diving into reader's theater plays and poetry.  In writing, students are first challenged with the idea of identifying an audience and learning how to be convincing.  They back up their reasoning with solid evidence and learn how to persuade.  The final part of this unit allows time for writing poetry and exploring how authors can paint pictures for their readers with their words.  They learn about writing using descriptive language, adjectives, vivid verbs, and rhyme.

Profile of a Graduate Capacities: Analyzing, Product Creation, Collective Intelligence
 

Unit 1 
Exploring our Reading and Writing Lives    

Reader's Workshop: This unit launches reader's workshop routines, expectations, class library and stresses the role of reflection and goal setting in the classroom. Students will become familiar with the routines of workshop and accountable talk. Reading skill work is imbedded in instruction via mini-lessons and small group instruction.

Taking the time to establish the routines for thinking and talking about texts during interactive read aloud will lay an important foundation for helping students develop evidence-based thinking that they revise based on further thinking and talking. Reading aloud and talking about texts will be a priority each day as classroom workshop is launched. The focus will be on using accountable talk to share student thinking and move the reader to deepen conversations.

Writer's Workshop: Writer's workshop is launched with an enthusiasm for risk-taking, agency and reflection. This unit sets the stage for the routines and procedures and writer to writer stance as routines are established for working side by side with writers through the demonstration portion of unit mini-lessons and a coaching stance toward conferring. Throughout the unit, writers are encouraged to reflect on their stamina, topic selection and writing craft as they work to experiment with ideas, genres, and craft through writing poetry.

Profile of a Graduate Capacities: Collective Intelligence, Self-Awareness
 

Unit 4 
Informational Books with Purpose    

Expository and narrative non-fiction are the focus of this engaging and motivating reading and writing unit. The exploration of message, audience, and purpose remains a constant - along with the skills of main/central idea and supporting details, close reading, note-taking, use of RAN charts, and writing non-fiction books. The classroom library is supplemented by books from the Multiple Copy Collection and school library to widen student choice, increasing stamina, motivation, and engagement. Science and social studies materials including big books and student readers also complements the collection. Non-fiction magazines from Time, National Geographic and Scholastic will round out the variety of text formats available to students.

The final part of the unit leads 2nd graders to project based learning to create their own narrative non-fiction stories after an inquiry of The Read and Wonder series by exploring a variety of narrative nonfiction books.

Profile of a Graduate Capacities: Analyzing, Product Creation, Alternate Perspectives
 

Unit 1 
Readers and Writers are Thinkers    

This combined reading and writing unit launches the students into their 3rd grade reading and writing lives. The three reading bends cover reader's workshop routines, good reading habits and strategies, and reflection and goal setting. Teachers will teach/review classroom routines and procedures and reading and writing goals for the school year. This unit focuses on modeling and teaching how and why readers are independent problem solvers who create goals and use literacy to learn and teach. A foundation will be laid for close reading to monitor comprehension and call reader's attention to infer by noticing what an author says and thinking about what is implied; this is directly related to the skill of summarizing taught in this unit. Students will support their thinking with evidence from multiple texts with a variety of genres. Children will be encouraged to take risks as readers and writers who problem solve, set goals and reflect critically on their own learning and thinking - by themselves and with partners.  

Writer's workshop will focus on creating independent and focused writers who work together in a community to plan, draft, revise, edit and publish work with a targeted audience, purpose and message in mind. The three writing bends cover writer's workshop routines, engaging the reader, and reflection and goal setting. Mentor authors will be used to write under the influence of writers as the teacher demonstrates how writers create goals for their own writing based on the writers that have a strong impact on them as readers. As routines are established and norms for talking about texts, included will be student generated texts as part of class discussions - the same norms and accountable talk modeled for students in reading will help writers have constructive and meaningful conversations about their own writing. Expectations, routines and procedures will be launched for conferring and make it clear to writers that they are accountable for all that they know about being readers and writers every time they write.

Profile of a Graduate Capacities: Collective Intelligence, Self-Awareness
 

Unit 2 
Traditional and Adapted Fairy Tales    

Motivation and engagement stay in the forefront as students are taken on a journey through traditional and adapted tales. Third graders' appreciation and knowledge of the genre are lifted through the humor conveyed and lessons taught through adapted and fractured tales. Writing about reading, close reading, and supporting thinking with text evidence continue as important foci.

Students will explore how authors use narrators and characters to tell what the story is really about, how and why archetypes are used in traditional literature, and the writing craft moves and their effects by authors of traditional and adapted tales. Narrative story structure is comprehensively taught so children can successfully write and elaborate upon their own adapted tales ensuring their story includes an explicit moral or lesson. Reading bends include an inquiry of traditional and adapted tales, story arcs and morals, and new perspectives on old tales.

Students will transfer the narrative structure, craft and moves that they know to imagine and create their own versions of tales. Teachers will model their own and shared tales for students to guide them in their own writing. Writing bends include planning and drafting adapted tales and craft moves; alliteration, figurative language, specific vocabulary, editing as you go, and sentence structure are woven throughout the unit. Editing and revising practice will further help students as they move into realistic fiction. Word work and conventions begin to take a stronger hold in this unit and continue through the rest of the year.  Teachers use many tales as mentor texts throughout the reading and writing units.

Profile of a Graduate Capacities: Analyzing, Product Creation, Alternate Perspectives
 

Unit 4 
Fascinating Facts: How Nonfiction Authors Engage and Inform Readers    

Teachers will prepare for the unit by gathering nonfiction text sets, including texts from the concurrent science unit on Biomes, eventually leading to an interdisciplinary PBA - a Biome/LA project. There is a focus on research strategies and skills and students will be provided with information that will help build knowledge and opportunities for application. The RAN strategy is used to design a learning plan and to introduce students to additional note taking structures that match an author's non-fiction text structure. Students will work in small groups and individually to learn about nonfiction topics. Teachers will move students from recognizing and using text features to recognizing and using text structures to aid in comprehension and analysis of the author's main idea and supporting details. This important reading work provides a bridge to the main writing work that students will do as they move from being writers of topics they know a lot about to researchers who write about the information that they have synthesized from many sources. Significant is the recognition that nonfiction authors bring many perspectives about their topics to their readers.

Teachers take writers through the process of becoming experts on a topic to teach their audience, while considering purpose and message. Writers will synthesize the information they are learning by reading and comparing text sets about a topic closely as they explore topics in depth and notice the variety of content, style, craft and structures that authors employ to teach readers.

Students will analyze what an author is trying to make them think and push them to apply this as writers, asking themselves: "What is my perspective on this topic and what is the best way for me to share and teach this to my readers?" Students will write non-fiction texts on a topic in writing during this unit; students to use text features and structures purposefully while keeping a main idea and details in mind as they plan, draft and revise their work.

Profile of a Graduate Capacities: Inquiry, Collective Intelligence, Product Creation
 

Unit 5 
Readers Study Important People & Writers Use Persuasive Moves    

Reader's Workshop: Biography - What Makes a Person Important? Students will explore and evaluate biographies to determine the importance of an individual to his or her community, to the world and to our own lives today. Building on their work with narrative and expository non-fiction texts, students will consider the author's audience, purpose and message as they evaluate the lives of individuals that biographers choose to write about. Realizing the difference between famous and important people through inquiry and discussion about how and why people we read about impact our own lives will lead students to engagement in the genre. Students will create an understanding of major time periods throughout history as they research and learn about problem solving in technology, communication, transportation, science and social justice. Teachers will model how to generate questions for inquiry and research and move deeper than learning all about a person or topic. Students will work to gather evidence and research from many sources that represent a variety of viewpoints as they suspend judgment until they have analyzed and evaluated multiple perspectives and positions to arrive at a conclusion.  Readers will come to group discussions prepared to discuss evidence and to read in great volume in a variety of genres as they engage in research and inquiry and self-select genres and topics to read in each day.

Writer's Workshop: Persuasive Writing - Combining Persuasive Moves to Build an Argument protocol and writing about reading will serve as a foundation as students move toward planning and writing persuasively in order to promote a cause or idea they want to spread in the world. As students explore and evaluate biographies to determine the author's perspectives and form their own opinions, they will work as writers to develop and forward their own voices and perspectives as persuasive writers. They will work to convince an audience to join them in a cause for change. Working collaboratively to discuss and argue points and counterpoints will help writers plan and revise their work before creating drafts. Argument protocol will help students prepare to write persuasively. This instructional strategy will give students many opportunities to build arguments based in evidence and plan with a target audience in mind. Writers of persuasion think about things they have strong opinions about; students will learn to choose the audience most likely to help them make a change and to write to different audiences in different ways in order to grow their cause. Inquiry of persuasive writing from editorials, songs, speeches and letters will help students plan and consider opposing arguments as they decide the evidence they will include persuading their audience.

Profile of a Graduate Capacities: Inquiry, Idea Generation, Design
 

Unit 1 Reading
Taking Ownership of Your Reading Life

The goal of this unit is to establish a reading community in the classroom so students get excited about books. Teachers will model thinking, talking, selecting books and goal setting to students using an authentic collection of mentor texts and chapter books.  The students will be engaged in conversations about reading and writing, in order to make connections in their reading lives. 

Students will gather evidence to support their ideas about craft, topics, genres and goals that are important to them. A large volume of reading and stamina are most important as teachers watch and notice their students' reading habits. As students develop independence and stamina, teachers begin assessing students using existing reading data from grade 3 and their observations of student reading behaviors, surveys and talk about reading.

Students will hear many Patricia Polacco, Jacqueline Woodson and Maribeth Boelts stories that will lay a foundation for the upcoming unit on characters. Teachers will explicitly teach the skills of telling and then writing summaries in the reading notebook and provide students with a progression that helps them set goals for their own writing about reading.  An important part of writing about reading will be gathering evidence with double journal entries to support their thinking.  These entries will be taught through initial modeling with the teacher and students moving to independence of their own double journal entries.

This unit will provide a rich opportunity for the social emotional goals for students and classroom community through mentor texts and engaging discussions.

Profile of a Graduate Capacities: Analyzing, Self-Awareness
 

Unit 2 Writing
Personal Narrative

Students will be building off prior knowledge of small moments to develop a personal narrative based on an experience in their life. The unit begins with generating ideas about what a personal narrative is and generating their own personal moments to then narrow into a topic. This helps lay the foundation for the writing process while focusing on a beginning, middle and end. Students will go through the process of planning, drafting, revising, editing, publishing and reflecting. During the process, students will focus on elaboration strategies, using details and transition words to create a smooth and logical flow to the writing. Modeling the writing process gives students the window into our thinking as a writer and allows students to see the messiness within the writing process.

Profile of a Graduate Capacities: Design
 

Unit 3 Reading
Tackling Trouble: Analyzing Characters & Problems to Interpret Theme

This unit pushes readers to build on inference work in order to interpret themes. Students will learn that themes emerge from the way characters react and get in and out of trouble across a text. Reading partners and book clubs should focus their work on growing and changing theories about characters as they consider multiple perspectives and interpretations of an author's message.  Discussions can reveal another way of interpreting a character's actions and motivations. 
This work should leave readers open to a variety of interpretations and lead to the transfer of critical thinking across texts. To prepare for the work of the PBA, students will begin charting and tracking how characters in a variety of stories handle the same issues of trouble to reveal the theme of the story.
Small group work will focus on making inferences. Teachers will want to build progressions that show students how to “level up their thinking” to make deeper and more important inferences. This will move interpretation work from a lesson learned in this book to a more universal interpretation of a theme from a life lesson.

Profile of a Graduate Capacities: Analyzing

Unit 4
Personal Essay

The personal essay unit gives students the opportunity to consider who is important in their life. The unit begins by introducing the students to a variety of personal essay examples. This unit takes the students through the essay writing process; picking a topic, paragraph structure, and drafting a five paragraph essay. During the unit students will learn how to use a graphic organizer to develop well written paragraphs, which helps lay the foundation of structure and organization to transfer into a well written essay. In addition, students will learn the process of revising and editing a written piece. Modeling the writing process gives students a window into our thinking as a writer and allows students to see the messiness within the writing process.

Profile of a Graduate Capacities: Design
 

Unit 5 Reading
How Writers Engage Readers 

Readers will engage in a variety of nonfiction texts to explore different structures, craft moves and styles that authors use to teach readers. Students will identify text features and text structures and learn how they help the reader determine important information.  Readers will practice note-taking in the structure of the text that they’re reading. The focus will be on the main idea and detail structure. Students will also compare and contrast work thinking about the audience, purpose and message of the text.

Profile of a Graduate Capacities: Analyzing
 

Unit 5 Writing
How Writers Engage Readers

Building off the reading unit, students will study two amazing nonfiction authors: Seymour Simon and Steve Jenkins. Students will explore the structures, craft moves and styles that these authors use to teach readers about interesting topics. Researching an animal of their choice, students will collect notes and create a mini informational book that includes pages in the style of Simon and Jenkins.

Profile of a Graduate Capacities: Product Creation
 

Unit 6 Reading
 Fantasy Unit

Students will become deeply immersed in the fantasy genre and further develop higher level thinking skills to study how authors develop characters and themes within a story.  Students will begin by exploring elements of fantasy and the characters' journey that reveal messages about heroism and good vs. evil.  Students will pay attention to the lessons the character learns or how they change to determine the theme of the story.  Partnerships are utilized to engage students in accountable talk to deepen conversations about their fantasy texts.

Profile of a Graduate Capacities: Analyzing
 

Unit 7
Interpreting History Through Many Lenses

An exciting aspect of this historical fiction unit is the culmination of all units taught, as well as merging the American Revolution content, concurrently taught in Social Studies.  The students will take a critical and empathic stance to historical perspectives and experiences as they are immersed in rich literature. The content learned in Social Studies will serve as a springboard for meaningful book club conversations and partnerships. This unit offers the opportunity for students to weave in their content and skill knowledge by writing journal entries from the perspective of a character living during the American Revolution.  Students will analyze the obstacles and challenges the character faced during the unfamiliar time period relying on the strong foundation of character analysis, personal essay writing, non-fiction skills and lessons learned in fantasy.  Students will pay attention to alternate perspectives, message and theme, and inferencing to deepen their understanding of important historical events.

Profile of a Graduate Capacities: Analyzing, Alternate Perspectives
 

Unit 1 Reading
Ownership: Readers and Writers are Thinkers

Students are familiar with the routines and procedures of choosing a variety of just right books, accountable talk, working with reading partners and book clubs and have worked to evaluate and justify with text evidence when writing about reading. While setting up the classroom initially focus on setting up the routines and procedures that will help the community of readers able to talk about and read books critically. Teachers will act as a coach and conductor by helping students build a reading life where new routines for carrying and keeping track of books that travel from home to school and back again will be taught. The primary goal is to set the stage for engaging a community of avid readers who read, think, talk and write about books in great volume. During this unit, review turn and talk, in order to give students practice and opportunity to take and make reading journeys through a book more meaningful. Since students are so familiar with the workshop model, this unit focuses more on establishing classroom routines and expectations, getting students into just right books and practicing writing about your reading. It should not exceed more than two weeks because the goal is for students to be in a book as they enter the writing launch/narrative unit.

Profile of a Graduate Capacities: Self-Awareness
 

Unit 1 Writing
Launch/Personal Narrative Unit

Personal narrative can be defined as a small moment story that is reflective of a significant or meaningful, event, time, place, person, or memory in your life. Students will explore narrative writing by reflecting on significant and meaningful moments in their lives. In doing this, students will practice collecting ideas for writing and growing those ideas into stories by implementing specific writing strategies. Over the course of four weeks, students will move fluidly through the writing process; they will spend roughly one week in the “launch” phase, establishing themselves as writers and class writing expectations; one week brainstorming and generating ideas; one week planning and drafting; and one week editing, revising and publishing.

It is an expectation that teachers are writing and modeling writing strategies alongside students throughout the unit. A major focus of this unit should be on writing volume and engagement. This means a majority of the time should be spent actually writing, not on brainstorming or ‘perfecting’ writing.

Profile of a Graduate Capacities: Design

Unit 2
Developing Theories About Characters

This unit lays the foundation for interpreting work that students will continue in the social issues book club unit later in the year. Building off of character work in the past, students will learn to identify and analyze the less obvious traits and feelings in characters that reveal the complexity and layers of a character. This work will then lead to more complex thinking as students shift their focus to using those identified complexities to analyze character change.  While analyzing character change, students will learn to empathize with their characters to help them fully understand the changes the character is experiencing.

Profile of a Graduate Capacities: Analyzing
 

Unit 3
Reading & Writing Nonfiction: Researching with Texts

Nonfiction books will first be sorted into general topics including animals, disasters, technology and history. Students will spend time previewing these broad topics to determine an area of interest. From there, students will select the topic they are most interested in.  Students will build off of their work from fourth grade by narrowing their focus from a broad topic by developing their own text sets (i.e. animals will be narrowed to endangered animals, narrowed to poaching elephants). Teachers will tailor the mini-lesson to include the teaching points from stage 3 but also to be more topic specific based on choices their students have made in their classroom. Teachers will model the research process using materials from the topics students can relate to, but likely not something students in their classroom has chosen.

Students will use their collected notes to develop and clearly articulate a feature article that has a bias/perspective about their topic. Students will write with the purpose of presenting information with a bias, organizing their writing with text structures and text features. The immersion into the genre through the research bend of this unit will imitate the writing styles of the books they read. Students will end their articles with a call to action, steps the reader(s) can take to help. As a culmination, students will their "expertise" knowledge with their peers during a museum walk share out.  They will read a variety of other students' articles and provide them with feedback.  Their ability to talk about and write about their chosen topic in detail and with accuracy is the goal.

Profile of a Graduate Capacities: Analyzing, Design

Unit 4 Reading
Interpreting Social Themes

While exploring social issues, students will infer character traits and motivation while justifying their inferences with both text evidence and schema to interpret themes that authors reveal through the troubles characters face. In this unit, students work in book clubs or partnerships to collect and share their ideas. Students may interpret texts differently, highlighting one social issue or another. 
Social Issues May Include: 

• Bullying
• Fitting In/Being New
• Friendship Issues
• Growing Up
• Homelessness
• Divorce/Family Issues
• Racism/Discrimination
• Peer Pressure
• Death/Dying
• Building Community

Profile of a Graduate Capacities: Analyzing

Unit 4 Writing
Literary Essay: Proving Your Interpretation of a Character

Students will do the heavy lifting work of rehearsing and revising interpretations of literature in their social issues book clubs. Using the theories that students developed in book clubs using a variety of text they will write literary essays. The focus might be on theme, character analysis, importance of setting, author's craft, changes of character from beginning to end of story, or anything else related to analyzing a story. Some students will use one text while others will compare and contrast using multiple texts. The end product will include a thesis/claim, supporting evidence (actual words) from their book(s), organization using paragraphs, and conclusions which may include, an inspirational quote or thought, circling back to the beginning, making connections to the "real world" or the author's own life.

Profile of a Graduate Capacities: Analyzing, Design
 

Unit 5
Picturing Change

Students are challenged to interpret and analyze multiple points of view through the use of picture books. This unit serves as a culmination of the work around character, theme, and conflict from throughout the year. However, it elevates the work from previous units by challenging students to use these three elements of literary studies to analyze multiple perspectives and points of view across an inclusive collection of picture books.

Profile of a Graduate Capacities: Collective Intelligence, Alternate Perspectives
 

Unit 6
Poetry

Students will be immersed in reading and writing poetry in this unit. The purpose of pairing these two units together is so that students have the opportunity to read with volume and engagement while practicing analysis through creative thinking practices. The class period should be split with time dedicated to reading and writing poetry each day. 

Students will explore a variety of types of poems through their own reading and writing. They will use their reading as inspiration for their own writing, emulating author's craft moves and topics from their favorite writers. Throughout this unit, students will compile all of their writing into a poetry journal/portfolio that will include samples of the different types of writing students explore. The writing process should be very fluid; students should be revising their writing as they read more poetry to test out figurative language and new writing strategies they encounter in their reading.  Mini lessons are designed to introduce a type of poetry and revisit a type of figurative language for the mid-workshop teaching point.

Profile of a Graduate Capacities: Analyzing, Design
 

Unit 7 Reading
Historical Fiction Book Club

In this unit, the work will continue to build off of the fourth grade historical fiction unit. Students previously took a critical and empathetic stance to historical perspectives and experiences. Students will be immersed in reading historical fiction and nonfiction centered around Slavery, the Civil War, Industrialization, Immigration, Westward Expansion, World War I, World War II, Civil Rights, the Great Depression and current events. Students will analyze and grow theories about, and trace themes across how struggles grow/stem from power, money and opportunity.

Profile of a Graduate Capacities: Analyzing, Alternate Perspectives
 

Unit 1 
Ownership and Agency    

This unit lays the foundation for readers and writers workshop routines, procedures and expectations while launching students to be reflective goal setters who collaborate respectfully both in and out of the classroom. Students will share thoughts and ideas and engage in evidence based discourse.  Teachers continue to follow the workshop model using an interactive read-aloud as well as independent reading. Teachers will gather anecdotal notes and observations throughout the unit as students are working, providing feedback and coaching to students as routines, procedures, and collaboration are established and grow in the classroom community. 

Profile of a Graduate Capacities: Analyzing, Self-Awareness
 

Unit 2 
Personal Essay    

In this unit, students grow ideas through the writing process as they explore and accumulate stories about their own lives. A personal essay is a creative form of non-fiction about an experience, place or person that is meaningful or important to the writer. While the writer still develops a thesis, the analysis takes the form of elaboration and reflection of the writer’s life.

Profile of a Graduate Capacities: Design
 

Unit 4 
Debate: Building an Argument to Persuade    

This unit will start by building engagement with nonfiction texts through inquiry-based instruction. The spirit of this unit is for students to start finding engagement, learning, and wondering in informational reading which will eventually lead to research. Students will have opportunities to read many informational texts gathered in the classroom and library. Throughout this unit, there is an emphasis on critical reading, explaining reasons and evidence to support particular points in a text, and drawing evidence from informational text to support analysis, reflection and research. Students will learn how to present information in an organized manner, relying heavily on their inquiries and notetaking skills from reading a variety of nonfiction resources. The overall goal of this unit is to teach students to be more persuasive and more analytic, able to weigh evidence, to follow lines of logic, and draw evidence-based conclusions. After collecting and synthesizing the information gleaned from the reading, students will choose a medium to persuade an audience.

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Unit 5 
Storytelling    

Stories are everywhere around us - on the TV, in songs or even from your friends. Some stories have lasted hundreds to even thousands of years by being passed down through the oral tradition of storytelling.  Later stories were written down, but we still love to hear them told. Stories teach us about an array of cultures, morals, themes and connect us all. Students will be immersed in the short story genre to read like writers for the purpose of analysis and goal setting. Students will analyze and deconstruct plots, characters, settings and craft moves to help them model and plan for presenting their own original short story.

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Unit 6 
“Fantasy Book Clubs”    

In this unit, students will work in partnerships or book clubs to become more powerful readers of fantasy as they explore new worlds and settings. Using the Hero’s Journey, will help guide students through interpreting the elements that set the fantasy genre apart from other genres, paying close attention as they read. Students will look at archetypes, how author's word choice shapes meaning and tone and the use of symbolism.

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Unit 2 The Hero’s Journey in Literature and Life    

After the launch unit where students set reading plans and focused on independent reading volume and engagement, students will now move to learning and recognizing the archetypal pattern of the hero's journey in literature and film. Through this understanding of the journey, students will be able to analyze text on a deeper level using knowledge of the hero's journey stages in addition to evaluating the author's choices in a variety of media. Finally, students will make a comparison between two journeys across texts and reflect on themselves and the world around them in the form of a comparative essay. They will work alongside the teacher to navigate the hero's journey. Students will then transition into their own independent books. This unit ends with the comparative essay which will serve as the baseline for the literary essay unit.

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Unit 3 Creative Writing    

This unit serves to take grade eight students' knowledge of effective storytelling and elevate it to the next level. This is a critical skill, as we know that narrative writing is the genre that really gives students their own voice and makes writing meaningful and personal. Students will have ample opportunities to learn, experiment with, publish, and share the elements of creative writing. Rather than commit to writing about one character, one plot line, one setting (really one story), student choice will be expanded and the volume of student writing will increase as they work daily to try new techniques as writers.

By the end of the unit, students will understand that they can call upon these narrative writing skills and strategies for any type of writing. This will be done through mini-lessons that allow them to create settings, establish mood, develop characters, delve into description via imagery (figurative language, sensory details), and experiment with voice. Although students may create any piece, specific instruction will be given in the following formats: short story, vignette, poetry, and chapter one.

Throughout the unit, students will work to build a portfolio of their writing samples and ultimately choose one piece to publish in The Polson Press, a blog designed with access for Polson students only. A reflection explaining the good writing techniques they used and the effect on the reader will wrap up the unit.

Profile of a Graduate Capacities: Self Awareness, Product Creation

Unit 4 Global Perspectives    

In this narrative nonfiction unit, students will explore how real people have emerged as heroes amidst cultural struggles for power, considering their stories from a global perspective.  In examining the structure and techniques of narrative nonfiction, students will consider how authors evoke a reaction in readers and shine a light on global issues. Students will be able to determine a key passage in a narrative nonfiction text and analyze how the author presents a global issue through personal experience. Additionally, using the text's perspective, their own evolving position on the issue, and the opinions of their peers, students will engage in discourse about global issues and their implications for our lives and our communities. Finally, students will write about a global issue that they would like to "shine a light on" for our community as a result of their work in this unit. The purpose of this weekly column is to raise awareness, or “shine a light” on a global issue with which residents of Connecticut may not be familiar.

Students will work in theme based book clubs. This means they will be working in small groups centered around a common theme but reading different books. Their discussions will be focused on analyzing the alternate perspectives by drawing from the different experiences in the books.

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Unit 5 Interpreting Dystopian Novels    

The literary genre of Dystopian, while not new, has made a significant resurgence in young adult literature. In this warped version of a utopia, the structure of a government-designed society is the antagonist in the story. As students enter into these dark worlds where the protagonists must struggle for physical and/or moral survival, they will explore the way authors alter our world to create the strange new world of dystopian texts. Through their interpretation of how the setting affects the characters, students will examine the social commentary the author is making while they also uncover universal themes.

Throughout this unit, students will be using information from the text to support their analysis of how the specific dystopian setting affects the story and how the author's message is delivered to readers to make some kind of social commentary. Finally, students will make connections among our world, the world the author has created, and history to demonstrate an understanding of the social issues the author is highlighting in the text.

This is a high volume reading unit and draws on Kate Robert’s A Novel Approach. It is taught following the recommended pacing of two weeks in a whole class novel, two weeks in book clubs and one week in independent books. Students will read at minimum, a total of three dystopian books across the unit (Fahrenheit 451 + Book club book of their choice + Independent book of their choice).

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Unit 6 Literary Analysis    

After reading a minimum of two dystopian texts, students will choose one element of dystopian literature to compare across the texts in a literary essay. Students must synthesize pieces of their analysis of both texts with their understanding of the characteristics of dystopian literature to create an original thesis. This essay will build off of grade 7’s work with author’s craft. They will use the same literary analysis essay structure that they’ve learned with a focus on bumping up the sophistication of their analysis and fluency. 

Through the process of planning, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing, students will then prove that thesis with critical evidence across texts in a well-written literary analysis.

Profile of a Graduate Capacities: Analyzing, Product Creation

Unit 7 Reading for Social Issues    

Students have completed the dystopian reading unit where they considered the concept of power struggles that arise in government-controlled societies, many of which stemmed from and/or led to social issues. It's time to take the idea of social issues to their world and the world around them via an open-choice reading unit. Students will read fiction or narrative nonfiction to find the social issues within the text. Students will identify the social issues and through their analysis of character conflict and the motivation for the choices they make, they will discuss the author's message about the issue, and provide their own commentary about the issue. Outside research and current news stories will also inform that commentary. Students will make connections between the text and their own world and/or the world around them.  This unit is used as an opportunity to visit with the LMC and hear about new and exciting book titles as students move into the end of the year.

Profile of a Graduate Capacities: Analyzing, Alternate Perspectives

Writing Unit: Persuasive Essay to Speech

Unit 2 

The ultimate goal of this unit is to teach students persuasive writing and public speaking skills. In conjunction with these skills, students will be asked to analyze a modern day witch hunt while also considering the various opinions and perspectives of the polarizing issues. Ideally, students would see the moderate point of view of their chosen issue, considering both sides, their biases, and, ultimately, the truth. Students will work to research an issue before taking an informed stance and will use their research to inform others who might not have the same opinion (21st Century Capacity: Synthesizing; Citizenship).

21^st Century Capacities: Synthesizing, Citizenship

The Crucible Core Text and Book Club

Unit 3 

Through the use of early Native American stories, The Tale of Two Americas, The Crucible, Puritan writings, and various book club titles, students will learn about the beginnings of American life as we know it. We will consider what it means to be a part of a society, specifically American society. Students will learn the background of the Salem Witch Trials, as well as Puritan life (this will be the ESP aspect of the unit). We will continue our work with rhetoric (ethos, pathos, and logos). As students read The Crucible, they will consider what is said and what it implied (subtext, denotation, and connotation), character identity, and individual versus group mentality. Ultimately, students will connect the idea of witch hunts to our American past (Red Scare of the 1950's) as well as other "witch hunts" throughout history. All of these skills and learnings will focus on strengthening the ability to analyze (21st Century Capacity).

When looking at Stage 3, you will notice various bends: Background information on The Crucible, Puritans, and Native American stories; Denotation and Subtext; Identity and Characterization; and Book Club. Teachers should "mix and match" these lessons and concepts based on student need and readiness.

21^st Century Capacities: Analyzing

The Great Gatsby/Book Clubs

Unit 4 

Students will be engaging with a variety of texts in order to analyze for race, class, and gender. By looking at literature, and their own lives, through the lens of race, class, and gender, students will be able to identify agency (or lack thereof). Students will read The Great Gatsby before gathering into book clubs where they will continue to analyze (21st Century Capacity) the effects of race, class, and gender on fictional characters. Ultimately, students will address how race, gender, and class (21st Century Capacity: Alternative Perspective) plays a part in American life and ideals.

21^st Century Capacities: Analyzing, Alternate Perspectives

Literary Essay

Unit 5 

In this unit, students will be asked to synthesize multiple texts and points of view in order to come to new conclusions on literature, what it means to be American, and what it means to achieve the American Dream. The goal of this unit is to write with precision, formality, and concision. Students will practice writing with voice as they synthesize multiple texts (21 Century Capacity: Analyzing)

21^st Century Capacities: Analyzing

Independent Reading - Marginalized Voices

Unit 6 

Students will choose independent texts that move away from the canonical WMA (white male author) and move towards marginalized voices. Students will be asked to read texts from alternate perspectives (21st Century Capacity). As we continue working to understand how race, class, and gender affects agency and voice, students will consider how marginalized peoples represent the American Dream. Ultimately, students will consider what makes an American Classic and must decide if their marginalized text fits into these standards (21st Century Capacity: Analyzing).

21st Century Capacities: Analyzing, Alternate Perspectives

Authors and Personal Truth - Core Text

Unit 7 

Students will read through the lens of an author. The goal here is to read, obtain, and practice writing moves from mentor texts and authors. Throughout the unit, students will read The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexie or I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou. These short, readable novels are used to teach elements of author's craft and style (21st Century Capacity: Analyzing).

21^st Century Capacities: Analyzing

The Power of Your Story

Unit 8 

Students will be studying craft and story-telling as they analyze excerpts from The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. Using Cisneros' work as a mentor text and model, students will work to bring their own stories to life. As a note, the learning events in this curriculum are multi-day events. Students should be reading and analyzing (21st Century Capacity) Mango Street, then applying those strategies to their independent reading, which is then followed by independent practice in their own creative/narrative writing (21st Century Capacity: Product Creation).

21^st Century Capacities: Analyzing, Product Creation

"Hand" Across America

Unit 9

Students have learned persuasive/rhetorical techniques and have been exposed to a variety of American texts and experiences. Students have also looked critically at American Literature through the use of race, class, and gender. Students then looked at the process of storytelling prior to telling their own story.

21^st Century Capacities: Collective Intelligence, Citizenship

Unit 1 
Humans and Their Stories    

Junior year the focus on analysis continues with literature from around the world. When analyzing literature from other cultures, students will use research and reading strategies to understand ancient texts and their importance in creating foundations for the literature that came afterwards. Students will read, comprehend, and analyze stories from various countries and cultures. These texts might include any of the following titles in the list provided, with a preference to The Odyssey or The Epic of Gilgamesh. 
While reading the ancient stories from other cultures, students will also complete short journal entries about connections to their own lives that will be used later in the course during the personal essay writing assignment (college essay).

Profile of a Graduate Capacities: Analyzing, Alternate Perspective

Unit 2
Cultures, Characters, and Motivation    

This unit will dive into Shakespeare's Macbeth. This unit can show the beginning of change in cultures, including but not limited to: new people in a culture, new ideas, challenging older ideas, etc. Doing so prepares students for the second thematic part of this course. Students enrolled in Courage, Hope, and Adversity will be better prepared for the clash of cultures in the trimester two whole-class novel, The Purple Hibiscus. Students enrolled in Reality and Unreality will get a taste for the hidden messages found in literature through magical realism, fantasy, and science fiction, including titles like Metamorphosis and Frankenstein. Students will think deeply about the characters and their motivations in order to write persuasively using rhetorical devices.

Profile of a Graduate Capacities: Alternate Perspective

   Unit 3
Courage, Hope, Adversity: Purple Hibiscus    

Students have experienced many ancient works of literature at this point in the course, and have experienced the human condition through the ages. This is a perfect time to reflect on who they are through the writing of a college essay /personal narrative. Students will look back on the journal writings they did in Trimester 1 and focus on audience, purpose, and message as they figure out what aspects of themselves to share with the world. The writing of a first draft happens in this unit, while the revisions occur in the next unit after students have had some time away from their writing pieces.

As students are working on their personal narratives, they will also move to more contemporary literary works. This shift mirrors that of many cultures, at times experiencing very rapid changes, causing cultural and generational shifts. Students will look for the cultural values they noted in earlier texts and analyze the way literature supports continuity and changes to those values. Students will conduct research more independently, creating their own research questions and noting important need-to-know topics for both a class text and an independent or small group text. Student responsibility for learning will increase in this trimester as students will be expected to continue to build up their analysis tools, and apply their prior learning to new situations.

PLEASE NOTE: This is the first unit in the thematic course offering Courage, Hope, and Adversity. Students will continue to work on skills, strategies, and concepts from the first trimester version of World Literature, but will not focus on thematic representations of human courage, the importance of hope, and overcoming adversity.

Profile of a Graduate Capacities: Inquiry, Analyzing, Design

Unit 4 
Courage, Hope, Adversity    

At this point in the course, students are ready to be more independent in applying the skills they have learned and will branch off into book clubs to create a “practice” project that will prepare them further for the final exam. This culminating unit serves as an opportunity for students to transfer the skills and strategies from previous units in this course into their own independent book clubs. Students have experienced a variety of ways to make their thinking visible this year through posters, poetry, presentations, and writing. The "practice" project is an opportunity for students to show all of the different ways by creating a display of their learning. The reading for this unit is varied and encompasses many different cultures and issues. 

While students are in book clubs and/or reading independently, they are also conferring about the personal narratives written in the last unit. Putting away our writing for a while can help us notice what we need to do to make it better. 

PLEASE NOTE: This is the last unit in the second half of World Literature. It is the final unit of the thematic course, Courage, Hope, and Adversity.

Profile of a Graduate Capacities: Inquiry, Design, Collective Intelligence
 

Real & Unreal Unit 1
Real-Life Magic    

Students have experienced many ancient works of literature at this point in the course, and have experienced the human condition through the ages. This is a perfect time to reflect on who they are through the writing of a college essay /personal narrative. Students will look back on the journal writings they did in Trimester 1 and focus on audience, purpose, and message as they figure out what aspects of themselves to share with the world. The writing of a first draft happens in this unit, while the revisions occur in the next unit after students have had some time away from their writing pieces.

Students who found new appreciation for the fantastical throughout the ancient texts like The Odyssey and The Epic of Gilgamesh will now move forward in time to modern versions of the fantastical. While we will no longer discuss the gods and mythology, we will dive deep into a world like our own with elements beyond our comprehension. Students will consider a text for its superficial meaning, as well as its subversive commentary on the author's society. With the fantasy genre, students will encounter fictionalized stories that act as criticisms on society as a whole. This requires research and background knowledge, which will act as an integral part of their analysis and understanding. 

PLEASE NOTE: This is the first unit in the thematic course offering Real and Unreal. Students will continue to work on skills, strategies, and concepts from the first trimester version of World Literature, but will not focus on thematic representations of human courage, the importance of hope, and overcoming adversity.

Profile of a Graduate Capacities: Inquiry, Analyzing 

Real & Unreal Unit 2 
Intro to Sci-Fi + Book Clubs    

Students will continue to navigate challenging and dense texts that depict a variety of human experiences unlike their own. In the previous unit, students studied the craft of magical realism, as well as the surrealist text The Metamorphosis, to understand how authors use fantastical situations to subversively critique human nature, society, or political events. As students move to their next genre study, they will be analyzing the purpose of science fiction as a genre (hint: these types of authors act similarly to authors of magical realism and surrealism). Once students are introduced to various elements of science fiction, they will engage with a self-selected text in book clubs. Throughout their book club study, they will analyze the various elements of sci-fi, surrealism, and magical realism. As they read and comprehend, they will research the element of society their author is critiquing. Ultimately, students will use their research to show how they've critically analyzed the text and its overall message.

Profile of a Graduate Capacities: Inquiry, Analyzing, Product Creation

Real & Unreal Unit 3 
Sci-fi: A Critical Look at Our Future  

In this unit, students will continue the process of blending fiction and nonfiction to better support their understanding of world literature. Here, students will encounter Romanticism in the form of Frankenstein. Not only will students study the literary value of the text, but they will also be tasked with making connections to Shelley's world to determine her ultimate purpose in writing the masterpiece.

Profile of a Graduate Capacities: Analyzing, Citizenship